I hate Unpredictable schedules in IT Jobs...

Here in this post, I am going to write about something that most of us hate. Frankly, there is lot of uncertainty in our schedule (IT people).

Do we work from 9:00-5:00 PM ? Answer : Very rarely, Do we spend 9:00-5:00 in office ? Answer : More often. So what is the difference huh? spend time vs work. This happens when we have no work or very less work. I call this as "Allocated Bench". We are allocated to a project but still don't know how to pass the time. One reason for this could be that the project has moved to production and sometimes some work crops up other time we enjoy. Another reason could be project is continuing to exhaust the allocated budget.Anyways lets stop analyzing this and return to the point.This is one side of story.

On the other side, we have so much work that we end up spending 12 hours in the office. Most interesting point is that this comes suddenly without notice in most of the cases. Today, my manager walked to my bay and said "All the days of enjoyment are now getting over. Business wants some enhancements and we have very tight deadlines to fulfill them." Gosh !! I have heard this many times..The very first thought that comes to my mind is "If planned properly I would not have to work for 12-14 hours suddenly ..The reason for this is that "IT Services business" is more of reactive in nature than proactive. Business users wont do anything until they are in complete shit. Later they will enforce strict deadlines.
On the other hand, I have seen "IT product development" more streamlined in the approach. They have regular routines.

This uncertainty in schedule puts serious limitations on the extra-curricular activities that one can get engaged into on a regular basis. This requires strong will and commitment. No wonder , why IT guys applying to B-schools have less to show on this front. I hope somebody from Ad com reads this entry and excuses us to certain extent on extra-curricular / community service front.

Also few updates in past few days:
I recommend two books that I read in recent times - "Discover your destiny with Monk who sold his Ferrari" by Robin Sharma, "Where all leaders have gone ? " by Lee Iaccoca. Currently also reading, "What Color is your parachute ?"
I have started learning Spanish and my efforts have become serious now over past week. If anybody is interested in learning Spanish, I recommend http://www.studyspanish.com

Cheers ..